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Summary

​Three Bow Street Runners (the precursor to the police in London) find unexpected romance while fighting crime. 

Stats

Genre: Adult historical romance (regency England)

Series length: Three books

Violence: Moderate violence, including things such a fist fights and gun battles. 

Magic/Supernatural: None

Romance: Strong but clean  

Christian/spiritual element: Overt threads woven throughout each story

Recommendation: Readers who enjoy both historical romance and romantic suspense.

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Opening Lines: 

"You, sir, are a rogue!" Emily Payne scowled into the black marble gaze fixed on hers, determined to win the deadlock of stares. Horrid beast. Must he always triumph?

Without so much as a blink, the pug angled his head. Sunlight from the front door's transom window streamed over her shoulder, highlighting each of his fuzzy wrinkles. The pup's face squinched into a doggy smile, coaxing a sigh from Emily. Who could remain cross with that scrunched-up muzzle?

Brentwood's Ward (Bow Street Runners, Book 1)
by Michelle Griep

“I suppose I can’t expect to keep you under lock and key. You’re hardly a criminal.  .  .are you?”   
 
It takes a criminal to catch one, and Nicholas Brentwood is just the man for the job. Reformed in more ways than one, the rough-around-the-edges Brentwood is a member of the Bow Street Runners, London’s early nineteenth-century fledgling police force. There’s none better than Brentwood at catching the felons who ravage the city’s streets, and there’s nothing he loves more than seeing justice served.  Beautiful and beguiling, Miss Emily Payne is not the sort of miscreant Brentwood usually hunts down. When he is assigned as her bodyguard, he vows to protect her from her father’s enemies, who will stop at nothing to carry out their mission fueled by greed and revenge.
          
All her life, Emily has longed for love, but it remains beyond her grasp. This season she’s determined to find a husband, which is quite the undertaking with a hound-dog guardian like Brentwood watching her every step. If he would just give her some measure of freedom, she is sure she could win the heart of society’s most eligible bachelor. 

Emily’s headstrong persistence challenges Nicholas in ways he doesn’t expect but of one thing he’s certain—of all the cunning criminals he’s dealt with in the past, this time he’s met his match.

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Opening Lines: 

Numbers would be the death of Johanna Langley.

Three hours of sleep after a night of endless--or more like hopeless--bookkeeping. Two days to pay the miller before he cut off their flour supply. And only one week remained until the Blue Hedge Inn would be forced to close its doors forever. 

​Numbers, indeed. Horrid little things.

The Innkeeper's Daughter 
​(Bow Street Runners, Book 2)
by Michelle Griep

A London officer goes undercover to expose a plot against the Crown
 
Dover, England, 1808: Officer Alexander Moore goes undercover as a gambling gentleman to expose a high-stakes plot against the king—and he’s a master of disguise, for Johanna Langley believes him to be quite the rogue. . .until she can no longer fight against his unrelenting charm.
 
All Johanna wants is to keep the family inn afloat, but when the rent and the hearth payment are due at the same time, where will she find the extra funds? If she doesn’t come up with the money, there will be nowhere to go other than the workhouse—where she’ll be separated from her ailing mother and ten-year-old brother.
 
Alex desperately wants to help Johanna, especially when she confides in him, but his mission—finding and bringing to justice a traitor to the crown—must come first, or they could all end up dead.

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Opening Lines: 

Was it wicked to say goodbye with a smile? Wrong to feel happy about leaving one's family behind? Surely only a sinner's heart would harbour such uncharitable emotions...wouldn't it? 

Stepping into the corridor, Abigail Gilbert closed her chamber door, shutting off such reproachful thoughts. This was a day of celebration, not bleak ponderings. Not anymore. 

The Noble Guardian (Bow Street Runners, Book 3)
by Michelle Griep

A Cross-Country Trip through Regency England Brings Intrigue, Rogues, and High Adventure
 
The must-read conclusion to Michelle Griep’s Bow Street Runners Trilogy: Life couldn’t be better for Abigail Gilbert—but it’s been a long time coming. Having lived with a family who hated her, love is finally within reach. Abby sets off on a journey across England to marry one of the most prestigious gentleman bachelors in the land—until highwaymen upset her plans and threaten her life.
 
Horse patrol captain Samuel Thatcher arrives just in time to save Abby. But to him she’s simply another victim in a job he’s come to despise. Tired of the dark side of humanity, he intends to buy land and retire.
 
Abby pleads with him to escort her on the rest of her journey. He refuses until she offers him the thing he desperately needs to achieve his goal: money. Delivering her safely will earn him more than enough to settle into a quiet life.

So begins an impossible trek for the cynical lawman and the proper lady. Each will be indelibly changed by the time they reach her betrothed, if they don’t kill one another first—or fall in love.